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The House Of Mirth [DVD] [2000]

The crushing pressures of social conformity have always been a central concern of Terence Davies' movies, so Edith Wharton's astringent novel of innocence destroyed makes an ideal choice for him. Set in the edgy, nouvea...
show moreu riche ambience of 1900s New York, the story traces the downfall of the lovely but imprudent Lily Bart (Gillian Anderson) in a world where hypocrisy and predatory vice lurk behind genteel facades. Wharton (whose later novel The Age of Innocence was brilliantly filmed by Martin Scorsese) has an acute feel for the subtleties of social nuance, the way insiders and outsiders are defined, and Davies skilfully renders these hints and insidious judgments in cinematic terms. Working to a tighter budget than most period dramas, he turns his limitations to advantage. The film's never in danger of being swamped by the gorgeousness of its sets and costumes, or turned into an exercise in easy nostalgia. The northern austerity of Glasgow effectively stands in for New York. Throwing off the mantle of Scully (from The X-Files), Gillian Anderson gives a powerful and wholly convincing performance as Lily, movingly despairing as her options are closed off one by one; and there's a fine portrayal of self-satisfied brutality from Dan Aykroyd as the chief agent of her downfall. --Philip Kempshow less